Important note: Information in this article was accurate in November 2004. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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AIDSWEEKLY Plus; Monday, November 8, 2004
Staff Medical Writers
"Recent studies have suggested that monitoring the amount of HIV provirus in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) may be a useful end point for HAART where, in combination with plasma viral load, it provides additional information as to the possibility of virus eradication.
"In the present study, a modified version of the Cobas Amplicor HIV-1 Monitor test (CAHIM), currently used to quantify plasma viremia, have been evaluated to also measure the amount of proviral DNA in PBMCs," researchers in Italy report.
"The analytical and clinical performance of the modified CAHIM test was assessed by quantifying different amounts of a standard HIV-DNA preparation obtained from the 8E5 cell line and by analyzing 165 patients and controls samples.
"In these experiments, the modified test, which showed a linear dynamic range from 1.7 to 4.7 log10 copies/106 cells (r=0.99) with a maximum CV of 20%, proved able to detect and quantify HIV-DNA in all but one clinical samples," said F.B. Lillo and coworkers, "with concentrations varying from 1.3 to 3.8 log10 copies/106 cells."
"During anti-retroviral treatment," the authors continued, "the assay revealed different proviral DNA time courses associated with viral load changes and inversely correlated with CD4+ cells count. As expected, HIV-DNA was always detectable even when plasma viremia fell below the CAHIM cut-off. The modified CAHIM test specificity was confirmed by testing 20 HIV-negative samples in triplicates."
"Taken together," Lillo concluded, "the data showed that the modified CAHIM test can be used to monitor HIV proviral DNA changes during HAART and can help in investigating further the clinical use of this marker."
Lillo and colleagues published their study in Journal of Virological Methods (Few modifications of the Cobas Amplicor HIV Monitor 1.5 test allow reliable quantitation of HIV-1 proviral load in peripheral blood mononuclear cells. J Virol Methods. 2004 Sep 15;120(2):201-5.
For additional information, contact F.B. Lillo, Hospital San Raffaele, IRCCS, Virology Laboratory, AIDS Center San Luigi, Via Stamira, Dancona 20, I-20127 Milan, Italy.
Publisher contact information for the Journal of Virological Methods is: Elsevier Science BV, PO Box 211, 1000 AE Amsterdam, Netherlands.
The information in this article comes under the major subject areas of HIV/AIDS, Molecular Diagnostics, Antiretroviral Therapy, Biotechnology, and Proviral DNA.
This article was prepared by AIDS Weekly editors from staff and other reports.
Reference
Lillo FB, Grasso MA, Lodini S, et al., "Few modifications of the Cobas Amplicor HIV Monitor 1.5 test allow reliable quantitation of HIV-1 proviral load in peripheral blood mononuclear cells", J Virol Methods. 2004 Sep 15;120(2):201-5.
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